German Banks Have the Right to Exchange Bitcoin, Ethereum to Euros on ATMs Says Regulator

Germany’s FCA, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), has clarified that banks have the right to offer bitcoin or eth to euro exchanges on ATMs.

Responding to a question by Thomas Lutze, representative of a left-wing party in Germany, BaFin is paraphrased as stating, according to a rough translation:

“Each institute, which has permission for proprietary trading, also has the right to set up machines that allow the exchange of Bitcoin in euros and vice versa. So far it is not known that this was done.”

That is, all licensed banks have the right to upgrade their ATMs to facilitate crypto to euro, and vice versa, exchanges, but no bank has taken the option so far.

Whether that will change remains to be seen, with the number of crypto ATMs constantly growing to around 3,000 just in US.

That’s especially the case as modifying the ATMs should be fairly easy as you can incorporate QR codes, so facilitating crypto address scanning and verification.

But whether banks think there is sufficient demand to pay off for that investment through transaction fees, remains to be seen.

What is known is that six German banks are currently trading or have acquired cryptocurrency, according to BaFin.

The banks are not named, but we know of at least one somewhat small private bank that has begun offering crypto trading for wealthy individuals, family offices and other institutional investors.

While Germany’s second biggest stock exchange has launched an app which will from September allow trading of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple.

More generally, some of Germany’s industry, especially in the car manufacturing industry and in the energy sector, have launched a number of blockchain pilots to see how they can incorporate the technology in their services.

So suggesting Europe’s biggest economy is slowly growing in crypto adoption as Paris u-turns and Frankfurt tries to attract some of London’s financial industry.